Haven't heard that in a while. However, it used to be the important distinction between mages and tanks. Mages had it easy, because no only did they grow based on MPR only, but they grew linearly, whereas tanks had to increase PR non-linearly, causing an ever-growing deficit and lack of available funds for things like purchasing BA.

Now that's changed, and tanks can benefit from linear damage just as mages did. The cost is still distinct -- tanks spend $ while mages spend XP.

----

But was it always as many claimed? For as long a I've been a member on this site, something didn't sit well with me in regards to this linear model mages can utilize. I now have the time to articulate it properly (or, at least, more properly than I could have earlier):

Mages did not have a damage increase that was linear with respect to XP spent. It was linear with respect to spell level. This is not the same.

As a skill increases, the amount of XP needed to raise it by a single point increases. Thus, while tanks spent an ever-increasing amount of $ on the strength of a weapon and the ST of the minion, so too did mages spend an increasing amount of XP on the strength of the DD spell. It was not ever linear. It was just a better growth curve than that of weapon damage, while being a worse growth curve than that of ST (since ST doesn't have an "effect" that is a proportion of ST level, while DD does). It evened out, though it wasn't perfect.

The current situation is different. Now, there is a definite linear growth curve for $ spent on a weapon, much more so than the non-linear growth curve for DD. Things are growing drastically out of proportion now, as witnessed by the top 4 MHs all being well over $100m. This is due solely to the fact that when mages were dominating, mages couldn't make their DD infinitely greater using USD. Now, tanks can. There is no feasible end to the top dogs (pun intended) pouring cash into weapons, since it's limited solely on how much paypal they intend to spend.

Yes, there is the argument that a mage could buy BA, then burn the BA in exchange for bumping up the DD spell. This argument is somewhat weak initially, and falls apart when you acknowledge that the cost of BA steadily increases just as does everything else in this game. The cost of weapon damage never increases.

Some time ago, I made a graph for JohnnyWas showing that before the change, he was very slowly falling behind in weapon damage since he couldn't buy $CB, whereas now he was falling behind at an exponential rate. As it stands, I don't see it being feasible to compete without pumping in as much USD (actually more, as you have to gain ground, not just hold steady) than even the top 15 people do, let alone the top 5.

I can understand why weapons such as the ever-dwindling supply of VB's make this important -- it's the only way to tread water. But even that only fights back against your opponent's AC, which is far from linear. Can you make a new NCB to race to the top? Possibly, but the cost of that is huge. Even on a shoestring budget, you're looking at an easy $40m.

The bottomline is that there's no way to generate cash. Forging is bogus, as the costs are too high and reward too small compared to the cash + XP lost while fighting. Camping is gone (did anyone ever suggest my bot-proof method to reenable it?) I think the best solution, honestly, despite that it will cost me a fortune in lost investments (though it'll never be done, so it doesn't matter) is to totally and completely remove CBD from the game. Make people fight only with MPR and nothing else. No PR necessary. No NW. No money -- just skill. _Maybe_ base weapons and armor all around. It's far from feasible, but hey.. it's a nice thought.

The bottom line is that the initial assumption that mages had and still have linear damage is incorrect. This was never the case.

I do agree, there is no good way to generate cash. So here's an idea: why not have leagues? You know how sports have a Pro League, etc. We could have a Super Heavy-Weight group for the big spenders (teams over a given NW, say 100mill), a Heavy-Weight League for those between 50 and 100mill, and a Light Weight Division for those under 50mill NW. Everyone is counted in the Super Heavy Weights, all but the Supers are in the Heavy's, and only Lights are in the lights.

My biggest stumbling point is rentals. I suppose you could easily shift up and down in leagues and not really have a problem. And perhaps clan fighting in your own league would net regular CP's, fighting one up gives an extra CP, and fighting down means one less point per regular fight.

But that's just another one of my wacky ideas. What do you think? I personally think it would be fun to have the ability to compete with those close to you on equal footing. And we could all watch the Super Heavy Weight Titans go at it in awe. Thoughts?

"Mages did not have a damage increase that was linear with respect to XP spent. It was linear with respect to spell level. This is not the same."

It's the same for Str.

And EC.

"The bottomline is that there's no way to generate cash."

Fight more.

"This is due solely to the fact that when mages were dominating, mages couldn't make their DD infinitely greater using USD. Now, tanks can. There is no feasible end to the top dogs (pun intended) pouring cash into weapons, since it's limited solely on how much paypal they intend to spend."

GL, I addressed ST. I addressed fighting more. and EC doesn't make all that cash worthless. The tank can train DX regardless of how much cash he spends. The spent cash does not preclude doing anything else to your character.

GL, please understand my post. EC is balanced against ST and DX, irregardless of weapon damage models. That's not even remotely part of this argument, and I honestly don't know how to explain that to you.

Jon, why do you so often reduce yourself to childish insulting remarks?

Working backwards, the idea of removing cash from the game was not serious. It was what is known as satirical. I even stated that it's far from feasible. It's a reflection, as noted in the title, on how things have morphed. Because of the current situation, the economics have gotten out of hand.

GL's counter to why spell damage is different than weapon damage does not apply. EC vs. ST/DX is outside the realm of the effect of bolstering weapon damage. Now, if the money spent on increasing weapon damage somehow prevented spending XP on ST/DX, then there might be a more viable argument. However, this isn't the case. There is still a case where weapon damage can steadily increase with no limiting factors or increasing cost.

Your first counter, making the XP cost curve irrelevant because it's almost linear at high levels, I addressed. There's a non-linear cost for BA, which in turn is a non-linear cost for XP. There is a hard limit to the amount of BA, and thus XP, that you can acquire in a day. There is no non-linear cost, nor any hard limit, for weapon damage acquired in the course of a day.

"EC vs. ST/DX is outside the realm of the effect of bolstering weapon damage. Now, if the money spent on increasing weapon damage somehow prevented spending XP on ST/DX, then there might be a more viable argument. However, this isn't the case."

But NS, it's not... If it was, having a uber NW weapon and no Str should still do root Uber damage.

It doesn't. Having zero Str drastically reduces the damage you should do if you had possitive Str (Unless I'm mistaken on this).

Therefore an equal xp expendiute into EC that a tank places into thier damage stats (Str and Dex) as good as nulifies all thier wepaon NW.

Not choosing to train EC (over something else) is your problem.

Back to your original post.

"This is due solely to the fact that when mages were dominating, mages couldn't make their DD infinitely greater using USD."

I do understand this as a problem. But there are ways for Mages to do the same. Spend 100 Million into AG and CoI. Yes, these aren't linear, but provide a percentage increase to the XP you spend, which not also increases your damage, but makes it harder for your DD to be resisted by anything. There will come a time where it's just no feasible to increase your AG or CoI any more, but tanks don't get such an improvement to damage and resistance from training thier + Armour.

If there was no way to reduce Tank damage this would create a totally unbalanced system. With weapons getting larger and larger and tanks romping around (more so than they do now), but EC fills this purpose.

(Ignoring armour) It should cost as much XP as they have in Str + Dex. Unless they heavily weight Str over Dex. In which case, you're taking their Dex to zero. All that's neded then is NW in DB equal to the pth NW of thier weapon.

If you're willing to spend as much XP as the top tanks, and some NW (Most NW these days will be pumped into linear 'x' won't it?) you can counter them.

Ignoring armor seems pretty dumb in this argument, its easy to get 75% boost to ST (100 if using a BoM). Yes you could just about do it for most of them (though getting a 6M EC to deal with SNK3R is a lot) but then you are spending a huge portion of your xp just to fight tanks and will be owned by mages way way way smaller.

BL, for example you have the largest EC in the game (1,704,679) which reduces STR and DEX by 852,340.

Your EC is on a 4 minion team and you have a MPR of 1,367,451.

Compare that to a Tank on a four minion team close to you.

Tarzan on The Alchemist (MPR: 1,425,884) has a STR of 432,943 and DEX of 756,905.

You EC reduces this tank to zero. No matter how big a weapon you put on Tarzan, he does nothing.

(As an aside, what does keep Tarzan Viable is his ToA, which in essence gives his tank statistics higher than your xp expenditure on EC can defeat. You would have to allocate more of your XP into EC to make his ToA ineffective.)

For an equal size tank, you can easily negate thier stats with EC.

A single E on a four minion team with EC would be unable to make this kind of effect on things like Single Tanks (SNK3R's one is a nice example), but that's concentration versus dillution.

"Ignoring armor seems pretty dumb in this argument, its easy to get 75% boost to ST (100 if using a BoM). Yes you could just about do it for most of them (though getting a 6M EC to deal with SNK3R is a lot) but then you are spending a huge portion of your xp just to fight tanks and will be owned by mages way way way smaller."

Missed this.

Of course. But then you reduce thier non boosted DEX to zero, and stop them hitting.

And you can wear a large Corn to boost your EC.

Without items EC to stats is ballanced. If the problem is there are more way to boost natural stats as compared to EO's, and this is leading Tanks to have too much of an advantage, that's a different discussion! ;)

hmm, so now you are ignoring the ToA. I admitted it was possible though not easy given the much larger bonuses available to ST over EC I just don't think its a good argument to say look you can beat this all round strat with this extreme anti tank strat which will be terrible versus mages.

"You can never stop a Single Tank with a ToA and a massive weapon and BL/Archery. Play one or don't bother logging on."

Or you could spend the same amount of money the top tanks do on weapons on a pair of DBs. Use EC to take out as much dex as you can, and use the DB+AoI to take out their weapon pth and ToA Pth, and pray you have enough left over DB pluses to take out the rest of thier dexterity?

But.

It still reamins, that if you ignore armour boosts to any skills, training EC equal to a tank trianing str+dex you stop them using whatever NW they have spent on thier weapon.

Sorry, just to clarify more. I think it's well within reason for (for example) a two minion team, with something like 50% spent on EC to be able to neuter a 4 minion teams Tank (with the tank wearing a ToA).

Might even be possible for a three minion team.

But it gets progressivly harder, and probably impossible, to EC to be used to neuter the tnak on an equal minion count team, who use a ToA on said Tank.

It's easier for multiple minion teams to adapt to this.

Want to stop that four minion team ToA tank with your four minion team? Bite the bullet and train EC on two or three of your minions, not just one.

But, I will say it's impossible to do this facing a Single Minion ToA Tank. You just cannot equal the XP spent on a single tanks Str+Dex+ToA.

NightStrike has a point, there is no way around that. It is simply a matter of how important that point is. So yes, Jonathan, you "dismissed" his first point, but, um, I disagree with your casual dismissal.

Up to around 1.2 or 1.3 million, stuff costs 14 points per level.

Up around 3.5 million or so (not sure on that), stuff costs 16 points per. That's a 14% difference. Hell, that's a whole clan bonus?

Even 15 vs 14 is a 7.1% increase, and 16 vs 15 is a 6.7% increase. I would say it will be about a consistent 7% extra that a mage will have to spend, while the tank will have to be spending extra cash on a weapon to keep up.

One difference is that the weapon may or may not add to PR (weapon allowance), while all of the experience the mage spends will go toward PR.

So, there clearly is a point there. However, I personally have not seen anything that leads to me believe it is out of whack just yet (that does not detract from the point, though).

If you think NightStrike is stupid, all I can say is that I am gravely disappointed. :\ Not sure what it is about CB2-land, but I don't even know what it takes around here for someone to get common-decency respect. If you _really_ want a laugh, try to dredge up some of my early posts on CB1. If NS is "stupid", then I was clearly "braindead". Yet, I got very supportive comments in response that allowed me to learn. In this era, folks get called "stupid". Classy.

GL, if you love EC so much, why aren't you using it? Proof's in the blood pudding, yes?

Look at Conundrum. Then look at my largest stat. Imagine my largest stat converted to EC. Then watch Conundrum still pulverize me. Fun times! Singe tank vs single mage. EC isn't even an option, as even if I did cripple him, we would just stalemate.

As for everything else, NS's point is based on math. Yes, he may be extrapolating too much importance from it, but I would disagree when someone calls his point "correct but irrelevant". Do you have any idea how long it took me to grow my Fireball just from 3.8 million to 4 million?

And to that, a tank could answer: "Do you have any idea how much cash it took to upgrade my weapon?" Difference is, my PR grew and his/hers didn't (depending on weapon allowance).

Just like previous threads of this nature, this reduces to my plea to get rid of the Weapon Allowance if things are so incredibly indelibly balanced now.

Vs non TOA tanks, it works great, however, one cannot put enough xp into EC to reduce a TOA tanks Str to 0. Esp with the TOA giving far more Str then Dex. If the Dex/Str benefits of the TOA were reversed then perhaps EC might be more useful, I am not sure about that though.

The best example we had was Jayuu's character with its 2.4 or so million EC. Worked great vs tanks but left himself open to mages. But even now, there are tanks with over 1.5M Str. And even 300k Str does a lot of damage in battle with high x weapons.

With the change to the game the past few months, I believe there is actually finally a very good balance between tanks and mages. The latest change with the AOI and seekers was just the thing to make the game very interesting.

"Look at Conundrum. Then look at my largest stat. Imagine my largest stat converted to EC. Then watch Conundrum still pulverize me. Fun times! Singe tank vs single mage. EC isn't even an option, as even if I did cripple him, we would just stalemate."

It's the ToA. How would you feel if you could get a Tattoo that gave the same XP increase to your EO that a ToA gives Str+Dex?

Granted, you'd need some way of dealing damage so you don't just stalemate, but you've rendered his weapons innert.

(I'm not saying this would be a good strat, at all, but if there was an EO tattoo - much like the RoS is the ED tattoo - then it would be possible to stop tanks no matter thier xp concentration)

Right now, as Jon stated when he made the PR/NW linkage, mages do not need NW to do damage but tanks do.

There has to be a way to let tanks do damage without crippling their PR.

And GL, yes, I believe a 1M NW whip should count the same as a 1M NW VB or MH. If your foolish to use a non top 5 weapon after a certain point, then you deserve to have the same PR weighting for it.

But, as someone brought up before, a ROS type of rune that would add to AMF and/or EC would be nice. Same properties as the ROS but it raises those spells instead of the AS class of spells. Protects vs DM like the ROS etc....

And I also believe the ROS does need another boost protecting it vs 1/3 to 1/2 its level of DM instead of its current 1/4. There are quite a few very high (1M plus) DM's out there and the highest tattoos, if they were ROS's would not come close to protecting vs those spells.

"And GL, yes, I believe a 1M NW whip should count the same as a 1M NW VB or MH. If your foolish to use a non top 5 weapon after a certain point, then you deserve to have the same PR weighting for it."

Not being baited, won't go there any more. ;)

"But, as someone brought up before, a ROS type of rune that would add to AMF and/or EC would be nice. Same properties as the ROS but it raises those spells instead of the AS class of spells. Protects vs DM like the ROS etc...."

I wouldn't say DM protection, that was great for EDs, as DM really messed them up. Maybe something else to go in addition to increasing your EO's. :/

The RoS needs boosting simply because there are big enough DMs to overcome them? Hm, I didn't realize RoSes are supposed to be a slam dunk?

So I should say Steel Familiar's need boost because I am not getting the damage output and effect against AMF that I desire?

GL, even multi-minion ToA teams will still overcome your EC, if you have multiple minions as well. Dilution affects both teams. In fact, the ToA makes it worse for the opposing team, because the minion wearing the ToA will have STR and DEX grow from the ToA at the same rate _regardless_ of minion number.

Finally, The WA is unneeded if tanks can do enough damage to justify their PR. I am saying they can, and would at least like to see what the landscape looked like without the WA.

"GL, even multi-minion ToA teams will still overcome your EC, if you have multiple minions as well. Dilution affects both teams. In fact, the ToA makes it worse for the opposing team, because the minion wearing the ToA will have STR and DEX grow from the ToA at the same rate _regardless_ of minion number."

So once we get to the point of there being a tattoo for everything, can we just do away with all of them?

Ranger, to make your RoS more effective, train higher enchantments. Am I missing something? I use a DD familiar, but I still have a huge DD trained natively. I'm still missing your point, it would seem...

Getting back to the orignal topic ( I did think about making another topic, as I'd cluttered this one with my EC love!), correct me if my thinking is wrong.

Damage dealed by DD spells is linear. It's roughly (I'm guessing, and this is an easy figure) 50% of the level, on average. So increasing your DD level by 2 (however much it costs) will increase your damage by 1.

There is a slight increasing xp cost to ability levels.

While damage done by DD is linear, increasing DD isn't.

But, this cost is the same for every ability, and equal at the same values.

It costs 'x' XP to get a 1 million DD level (dealing on average 500K damage), with the exact cost per level increasing upwards.

It would also cost the same 'x' XP to get a 1 million STR statistic.

Increasing each statistic equally confers the same cost. It's not easier to raise on over the other. So although the cost per point insn't linear, as it's the same cost per point (at equal levels) for all stats, this isn't really an issue.

With comparison to DD to wepaon Damage, If you have Trained 'x' XP and have a 1 Million DD level, you can expect to do 500K damage. Training the same XP into STR does not give you 500K damage.

I'm not sure how much damage just 1 Million STR does, but it's not a lot.

You then have to use a weapon. You have to spend additional NW over the DD user to increase your damage.

At some point of NW expense, you reach the ability to do (on average) 500K damage (In a single hit, not considering DEX or pth here). I would not hazard a guess as to how much NW, or what size of wepaon would be needed to reach this. But that is an expense *above* that of the DD damage. The bonus to this, is that you are also able to continue to increase your NW expenditure (again, ignoring XP or BA pruchases for both stats, as each are equal) with physical damage to increase the damage you do, above what you would expect from DD linear damage.

Thing is, GL, even though at 1 mil STR they can't do 500k damage like the mages, they can still hit doubles at least - so if they can do 250k damage (which a tank easily can at 1 mil STR) then they equal out with the mages.

The STR vs. DD aspect is exactly equal. But since STR is only "half" of the physical damage component, only "half" of the damage has the same curve as DD. Weapon upgrades are completely linear, unlike the slightly increasing DD.

However, weapon upgrades cost money, so that (at least) makes up for that slight irregularity. (It isn't "irrelevant", it is just, in my opinion, negligible. There is a difference).

After all of that is said, the only remaining difference is that the NW component of physical damage has an allowance so that it does not all (sometimes none of it) count toward PR. That is the part I disagree with.

"Thing is, GL, even though at 1 mil STR they can't do 500k damage like the mages, they can still hit doubles at least - so if they can do 250k damage (which a tank easily can at 1 mil STR) then they equal out with the mages."

Not true OB. ;)

At 20 Dex, facing a tank they won't hit. And therefore won't do any damage. But more reaosnably, facing another 20 Dex character, that have a 50% chance to hit (I've no idea if no wepaon equipped used the 1-H base chance to hit...), therefore doing 50% less than they sohuld anyway.

But consider the 'scaling' XP cost of abilites another way.

Training a 1 millionlevel FB costs the same amount of XP as training a 1 Million CoC. (Next numbers totally made up...) FB does linear damage of 50% of it's level. CoC does 75%. This is 'balanced' by giving FB three ranged attacks and the friendly splash damage penalty.

The XP spend on these DD is not a factor when comparing them for 'balance' issues.

Umm, figure I have to say something. Being rude or short with other players won't make your idea any more likeable.

Second of all, NightStrike you ARE right I think. But the game is balanced so why complain?

Personally, this is basically a void discussion everyone is having. The game is balanced. If you really think the problem is with tanks and their Super weapons, then ask Jon to stop USD. He won't and we can all get back to playing.

"The STR vs. DD aspect is exactly equal. But since STR is only "half" of the physical damage component, only "half" of the damage has the same curve as DD. Weapon upgrades are completely linear, unlike the slightly increasing DD."

However, weapon upgrades cost money, so that (at least) makes up for that slight irregularity. (It isn't "irrelevant", it is just, in my opinion, negligible. There is a difference)."

I see the distinction, and do agree for all things to be equal that weapon 'x' upgrades should follow the slightly curved upgrade costs that statistics follow.

But to get back to;

"The bottom line is that the initial assumption that mages had and still have linear damage is incorrect. This was never the case"

the increasing xp cost per level of DD is irrelevant, as every expediture of xp is base don the same curve. DD still has a linear damage output. ;)

"After all of that is said, the only remaining difference is that the NW component of physical damage has an allowance so that it does not all (sometimes none of it) count toward PR. That is the part I disagree with."

I now agree with a WA. Up until the point that Str+Wepaon does the same average damage as an equal XP DD. I don't agree with all weapans having the same weighting, but I'm not going there again. I just don't agree with it.

Oddly enough, I might just be in partial agreement. As it stands, PR is once again a measure of nothing. It doesn't represent the power of the team. I can now equip a 60 mil NW bow with no change in PR.

I'd also like to know if there are still reward penalties for being the higher NW team in a fight? If so why are they still in place, shouldn't NW-PR have made them useless long ago?

Heh, I think the three of us have different views on WA, just talking about the damage thing. ;)

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